Dreamers, conceived as a tri-fold photography book and printed in black and silver duotone, is based on Shirin Neshat’s trilogy of black and white video installations, which comprises Illusions & Mirrors (2013), featuring Natalie Portman, Roja (2016) and Sarah (2016). Three stories exploring women’s dreams through emotional and psychological narratives, remaining on the border of dream and reality; madness and sanity; and consciousness and sub-consciousness. In the artist’s own words ‘I have been haunted by the power of dreams, and in how it is only in the state of dreams where the boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred; and where human beings become truly free and naked.’
Based on aspects of her own recurring memories and dreams, Neshat explores her identity as an Iranian woman in America, indirectly investigating issues of gender, power, displacement, protest, identity, and the space between the personal and the political.